


Homecoming

by fraternite



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety, Background Trent Ikithon, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Touch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:42:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25410100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraternite/pseuds/fraternite
Summary: Caleb's known all along that eventually their path would lead them to Rexxentrum; the more tied up they become in the games of the great and powerful of this continent, the more inevitable it becomes.  Knowing it was coming hasn't made it any easier.He doesn't know if he can do this.[Basically, Caleb just has a panic attack for twelve hours and struggles to ask for the help he needs.]
Relationships: The Mighty Nein & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 23
Kudos: 164





	1. Chapter 1

He’s known for weeks that this moment was coming. Their road has meandered all over the Empire and outside it, down to the Menagerie Coast and across the sea, through Xhorhas and up into mountains claimed by no country; it was only a matter of time before they washed up in Rexxentrum. And with the way their stories have become intertwined with the political machinations of the great and powerful of the Empire and Xhorhas, it’s really a surprise they haven’t yet ended up in the capital city of the Empire.

But to hear the name drop so casually from his friend’s tongues, that he was not ready for.

When he imagined it, it was a long and difficult decision. He had often wondered, late at night, what the reason would be that was finally strong enough to draw him back to the city that once was his home. It wouldn’t be an easy choice, whatever the reason; Caleb has imagined himself agonizing over it for hours, maybe even days, weighing the need for information (or contacts, or revenge, or a thousand other motives he invented) against the danger of stepping right into Ikithon’s city. Even if he knew it must be done, it would not be an easy path to commit to.

Instead, he finds the decision made before he has time to recognize it; he’s already talking logistics and options for transportation when it hits him: He’s going back.

The words drop from his mouth like dead things, and there is a roaring in his ears. He feels himself stumble a bit as he claps a hand to his head. “Oh gods . . .”

“What?” Jester looks up from a basket of miscellaneous merchandise she was digging through.

“Can’t scry from the Soul?” Nott asks. Then she sees the look on his face, and her yellow eyes widen, ears twitching worriedly toward him.

“I--” He pauses to steady himself against the shop counter. “I am just nervous about going home.” His voice feels unreal, like its somebody else using his mouth to talk.

Now comes the conversation he had imagined, the weighing of options, the consideration of  _ is it worth the risk? _ But Caleb might as well not be there; the words glance meaninglessly off his useless head. His whole body is hot with fear, and his fingers have all gone to pins and needles. 

He looks down at his hands. They’re shaking, ever so slightly, and he can’t stop it. He wishes for Nott’s rough little hands clasped in his, holding him steady. He wants to ask her to hold his hand. He wants to say  _ I need help. _ He can never say that.

Instead, he pushes out, “I trust you guys,” his voice half a whisper. It’s true, he’s surprised to find. But that truth does nothing to quell the deep feeling of dread in his stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s the smell of the air that gets him. At first, it seems like nothing really changed when they stepped through the teleportation circle; there’s the quick  _ whoosh _ and the feeling of gravity bottoming out just for an instant (which does nothing to help Caleb’s churning stomach), but they’re just trading one Cobalt Soul atrium from another. The blue-robed figures are the same, as is the barely concealed panic in their voices as they try to ascertain who the strange arrivals are and how they fit into the unknown dangers threatening their city.

As they’re led through the halls of the archive, past towering shelves of books, Caleb starts to notice how the air smells. He never thought of a city as having a particular smell of its own--not the reek of garbage and the scent of frying foods and the odor of underwashed students crammed into crowded dorms, but something unnamable in the air of the city itself--but now he knows it does, and it is hitting him like a ton of bricks to the chest.

He’s shuffling like a blind man, and Beau halts half a step to draw alongside him, glancing at his face. She makes some crack about him and libraries, the words don’t even register with him.

Convulsively, without thought, his hand goes out. “I don’t know if I can do this.” His voice is tiny in the vast openness of the archive reading hall, falling apart before he can finish the sentence. He blinks hard and doesn’t meet her eyes.

“Hey,” Beau says. She bends down to get up in his face. “Hey, Caleb. Stay with me.”

He shakes his head and he realizes his hand is clenched on her shoulder, gripping her the way he does when he is seeing through Frumpkin’s eyes and he needs her to lead him, to keep him safe while his body is helpless. He forces himself to let go, to draw his hand back and hide it in the pocket of his coat.

“You got this,” Beau is saying. “You can do this. We  _ need  _ you.” Her hand reaches toward him, and it is all Caleb can do not to lean into it. She stops short of touching him. “We need you to do this.”

Caleb takes a deep breath and pushes off the wall. “Yeah, good.” He swallows hard against the nausea wrenching his gut. “Good.”

He’s not good.


	3. Chapter 3

Broken glass crunches under his boots, shards of the Dawnfather’s exploits in gold and blue and violet. 

The air is sharp with the smell of ozone and blood. (For the first time since they got here, the city doesn’t smell like the place of his memories, and he should feel relief at that, but instead what stabs through his chest is . . . something like loss.)

They’ve only been in Rexxentrum a few hours, but it feels like weeks. He faintly remembers wheeling above the city on wings, the angle new but the shape of the skyline so painfully familiar, then running down streets slick with rain. And then there was a battle, an endless, nightmare affair that opened up like a puzzle box, each success leading to an enemy more horrible and dangerous than the last.

Now that it’s over, now that the thing that was Obann has been reduced to ichor and shards of flesh, now that they’ve limped back up to the chantry’s main hall to see Pumat Sol conscious and being tended to--now everything that Caleb had forced to the back of his mind comes crashing down on him.

_ He’s here in Rexxentrum. Here, where the Academy is. Where Eodwulf and Astrid may well be. Where Trent-- _

Caleb sways a little and has to grab onto the end of one of the pews, and it’s not only due to the blood soaking the front of his shirt. He lets his eyes fix on the shards glass littering the floor (here, a scatter of red and orange, colors of the blood and flame that will lick at Caleb’s dreams tonight, though he doesn’t remember those shades being in the window when it was whole) and tries to focus on pulling himself together, steadying himself for the long night it is sure to be. His hands, clenching the pew back, are sticky with blood and soot and the ooze that came out of Obann, and underneath it all his knuckles are white with tension. 

_ Come on, _ he scolds himself.  _ Breathe. Get ahold of yourself. We’re nowhere near finished here.  _ It’d be a lot easier to take deep breaths if each one didn’t send a stab of pain through his chest.

(It’d be a lot easier to breathe if he wasn’t practically on the doorstep of the man who tore Caleb apart so thoroughly he’s still bleeding out.)

He doesn’t know if he can do this.

He raises his head, with some difficulty, and looks around the ruined chantry; Fjord and Nott are standing a little apart from the healers and guards, looking around with that awkwardness of those who don’t know what to do now that the fighting is done. He shuffles across the cathedral’s open floor like an old man, glass skittering away from each clumsy step, fetching up beside them like flotsam washed up against a dock.

“Hi, Caleb.” Nott’s voice is rough from screaming through the battle, and her usual twitchiness is buried under a layer of exhaustion, but she looks up at him and grins, showing crooked yellow teeth.

He finds he can’t meet her eyes, and he turns to stand next to them, looking out at the destroyed cathedral. He opens his mouth to say whatever it was he came over there to say and finds it empty. (He doesn’t know what words he planned on using, but the meaning is still there, fluttering around frantically like a trapped moth, the only thing inside his head:  _ Please help me. _ )

But the words, if he ever had them, are gone, and there are so many soldiers walking around, and nobody’s  _ exactly _ looking at them but really that’s even more suspsicious, and he suddenly remembers that Trent is not only the teacher who twisted him until he’d traded his soul for power, he is also a major political player in this city.

And so he just says, “It is going to be such an interesting day . . . there are so many people to meet.” His voice is flat, empty--like when Caduceus talks to dead things--and he can’t meet their eyes, but inside he is begging them to hear the things he can’t say.

“Here in the city?” Fjord asks, and Caleb knows he understands--at least a little. “If we had the chance, would you prefer . . . not to be here?”

And if Caleb could do it without utterly falling apart, he would laugh. Because “prefer” is such a mild word, so completely inappropriate for the desperate, animal desire--almost a  _ need _ \--he feels to just run away, to get as far from this place as he can. He tries to smile and realizes even that is a bad idea.

“I love this city,” he says, and the words sound like a lie, but the sad thing is that despite everything--despite the terror freezing his heart just at setting foot in the city, despite the scars on his arms and the flames inside his head--they’re still true. He  _ does _ love this city, the place where the world first opened up to him--and Trent has even twisted that into something painful.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to say that this is a 5+1 fic kind of? "Five times Caleb didn't ask for help, etc. "

The Righteous Brand soldiers leave them in a kind of waiting room in the castle (and there’s something else to be terrified out of his wits over, as if everything else weren’t enough: they’re in  _ Castle Ungebroch _ ). It’s hardly even a room--that is, it’s  _ big, _ but it seems to be a place you pass through on the way to somewhere else, more than a place to be in. The white stone benches that line the walls are just shallow enough to not really be comfortable to rest on, and the window glass is thick and slightly frosted, to let in light but provide no view to enjoy.

Caleb’s a little glad to have the city blotted out behind the frosted glass. The walk through the city, passing under the looming spires of the Candles, the familiar vaulted roofs of the academic buildings of the Academy, was--challenging. (They’d walked down one street that Caleb walked a hundred times back when he was Bren, on his way to class from the teashop. He and Astrid and Eodwulf used to sneak away to as first-years, flushed with their own importance as Academy Students, giddy with the feeling of having  _ gotten away  _ with something forbidden, totally unaware that the professors knew-- _ of course _ they knew--or that stepping off campus to pay for a cup of tea that you could get for free in the refractory was not really a very clever or creative way to misbehave.) To see the old buildings, the familiar skyline, even the old red-and-gold street signs, unchanged after all these years . . . it wasn’t all  _ bad _ , even, but it was a lot. In this white, sterile place-between-places, he hopes he can maybe just pretend to be nowhere for a minute.

He considers the benches, but Jester has already pronounced them unendurably uncomfortable, and the group is gathering up in a circle on the floor in about the center of the long room, Caduceus thoughtfully considering his little tea-brazier. Caleb floats along on the edge of the group and finds a spot against the wall. Wrapping his coat, clammy with drying blood and other fluids, around himself, he slides down the wall and hugs his knees to his chest. Too late, he wonders if the gore-covered coat will leave a dark smear across the white stone wall, but his racing mind wearily files that away as something to worry about later.

The fight is over, but he’d be a fool to think the worst of their challenges are behind them. As much as he wants to give in to dragging weariness, he knows he has to remain ready. He tries to walk himself through the recovery techniques he learned back in his earliest days in the Academy--the breathing exercises, the practice of focus, the centering. But his concentration is broken by memories (a hard bench under his scrawny, underfed-farm-boy ass, feet swinging above a stone floor they can’t quite reach; Astrid’s freckled face, screwed up in concentration, determined to be the  _ best _ at relaxing; Eodwulf trying vainly to smother his laughter after passing a noisy fart in the hushed lecture hall). In the end, he leans his head back against the wall and watches the room spin faintly through half-shut eyes.

The others are going over what’s happened since Yasha’s been away--voices low, but not quiet enough for Caleb’s comfort, not with guards standing watch not fifty yards away, not with gods know who behind the big mahogany doors at the end of this hall. He tries to breathe against the painful clenching of his chest, twisting his hands into the pockets of his coat.

The conversation started out solemn--he couldn’t focus on the words but he heard Yasha’s halting murmur, caught Mollymauk’s name once or twice--but the mood has lifted a little, Beau showing off her new tattoo, Fjord’s face flushing dark green as he tries to explain his changed accent. Nott makes some crack about him getting kicked in the head by a donkey, stirring up a chorus of nervous laughter; Caleb notices how her eyes dart around the group, checking the effects of her joking in the worried faces. Her stare lingers especially long on him, and she raises her eyebrows in a silent  _ Okay? _

He gives her a smile that’s more of a grimace in answer. As Jester starts warning everybody not to fart, because the castle staff might be monitoring for that kind of thing, Nott slips around the edge of the group to crouch beside Caleb. She is careful not to touch him, not to pin him down with too much eye contact, but she’s there. Nearby if he needs her. Only an arm’s reach away.

Usually Caleb appreciates the care she takes--that all the group take with each other. (It’s been something they’ve all learned together: Don’t come up on Beau from behind; Nott needs her wrists free; when Caleb’s in an especially bad place his skin crawls and he can’t handle being touched; no sudden movements around Yasha.) Today, the distance between what he needs and what he’s willing (able) to ask for is too much.

He stays pressed against the wall, shaking, covered in a cold sweat.


	5. Chapter 5

The fate of two countries is being worked out--possibly their own lives as well--and Caleb does not take in a word of it. Caduceus and Beauregard’s voices come to him distorted, as if from a great distance underwater. Mostly all he hears is the throbbing of his own heartbeat in his ears. The king is there (he’s known the man’s name since before he knew the name of his own country; he never dreamed he would ever see him face to face--at least, not before the Volstrucker days); the Prime Arbiter is there, and a person in the most ornate Cobalt Soul robes he’s ever seen. But they all could have ceased to exist the moment Caleb saw the pallid, withered face of Trent Ikithon.

He doesn’t look at him; he keeps his eyes fixed on the center of the dais. But he’s aware of nothing but that flash of white and gold in his periphery. Every shift in posture, every slightest movement at the edge of his vision sends another wave of cold sweat down his back.

There is negotiation; there is challenging of credentials and displays of evidence. There are trades, one piece of information for something else. Caleb doesn’t know what’s happening. He hopes they aren’t asked to move; he doesn’t think he could take a single step.

_ Does Trent know him? _ He can’t decide. Was there a shift in his posture as his eyes passed over Caleb? Is the blood and black ooze smeared over his face enough? Did the rain wash it away as they moved through the city? Should he have stopped shaving his beard? Did any of it matter, would Trent not know him the moment his sorry form stepped before him?

Caleb thinks he might be sick.

In his pockets, he clenches his hands around the scraps of spell components he had shoved there, unthinking, during the battle. Something wet squishes through his fingers in the left pocket-- _ oh, that’s the guano _ \--and a soft crackle in the other pocket lets him know he’s going to have to find a new moth cocoon before he can cast polymorph again. In his left hand, bits of sulfur, jagged-edged, dig into his palm among the guano.

Something has shifted; the people on the dais are moving around, most of them aren’t staring at the Mighty Nein anymore. Distantly, Caleb wonders what has been decided. 

Allura approaches the group. Caleb tries to make eye contact as she converses with them, to keep up the charade of being a functioning person, but he can’t focus on anything but the white-clad figure on the dais who is settling his robes around his shoulders, gathering up papers and books from a side table. At one point he thinks he says something, but the words fall from his mouth without thought or understanding.

More people come up and leave, make short conversations with the group. Caleb hears the words but they carry no meaning. He grits his teeth and breathes and holds himself back from begging the others to flee, to get out of this place as soon as they can. He pulls his face into a mask of calm and counts the seconds and  _ tries _ not to fall apart. He would grab Nott’s hand if that was appropriate in the king’s throne room. If he could move.

Then--Trent is coming towards them.

Trent is coming toward  _ him _ .

Caleb’s insides turn to ice, and his vision goes gray at the edges. Thin, desperate breaths whistle faintly in and out between his clenched teeth. He is vaguely aware of bodies around him; there is someone in front of him, a tall shape looming at his right. His eyes fix on Trent’s face--not on his watery gray eyes, but just next to them, on the liver spots on his temples, on the ragged graying brows--and he can’t look away.

Like suddenly surfacing from a deep pool, everything snaps into focus with the first words out of Trent’s mouth.

“Impressive business, isn’t it?” 

Caleb’s stomach curdles. His hands clench at the slivers of sulfer, the crushed cocoon, so hard his nails bite into his palms.

“You’ve come a long way from simple sell-swords and pit fighters.”

The sick familiarity of the half-praise in that sneering voice runs down his back, warm and sticky like blood, like tar, like the ichor of a cursed demon gasping away its last moments in a ruined chapel vault. 

“Especially you, Bren.”

Caleb has stopped breathing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the comments, y'all are the best! <3
> 
> and oops, now there's going to be a 7th chapter eventually . . . this has lost all pretense of being a 5+1 fic

_ Bren.  _

_ Bren. _

He can’t stop hearing Trent’s voice, his old name echoing over and over in his ears. He lets himself be pulled out of the throne room. He follows automatically as someone leads them through winding corridors. He’s not sure how his legs are working when he can’t even see anything but gray static.

Then they’re out in the city again, uneven cobblestones underfoot. He wrenches an ankle on one of them and doesn’t feel a thing. The sun has come out, and hot, humid air rises from the street. Caleb’s skin, sticky with dried sweat, grows damp again.

Someone is holding onto his elbow. He tries to see who it is, but the black spots filling his periphery blot them out.

They go inside. It’s cooler. There are voices, some he knows but cannot name, others unfamiliar; the words of their conversation are lost under the heavy, endless thud of  _ Bren--Bren--Bren--Bren _ , sounding in time with his own heartbeat in his ears.

Again they are moving. There is a staircase, and Caleb stares at it and stumbles into the first step three times before remembering how to lift his foot to climb. A hallway so shadowy he can’t see anything--or is it that he keeps forgetting to breathe? The metallic rattle of a key in a lock.

Deep green carpet, slightly worn on the edges. He lifts his head a fraction. Three narrow beds. Stretched white linens. An empty nightstand, a cabinet in mahogany and gold trim.

It is an inn room.

He looks around, the muscles in his neck snapping with tension. He sees Yasha, withdrawing to the far side of the room. Fjord is striding out onto the balcony to check out the view; Nott’s half inside the nightstand, rummaging around. Jester appears to be testing the mattresses by flopping facedown on the nearest bed. Caduceus is still at Caleb’s elbow, holding just tightly enough to keep him pointed in the right direction. On his other side is Beau, ashen-faced and soaked with blood, pretending like her arm around his waist is keeping  _ him  _ up and not the other way around.

They are, finally, alone.

As the realization filters in, his hands start to shake. Tingling builds in his fingertips, matching the buzzing of static in his ears, as his body catches up to the knowledge that it’s safe now to fall apart. Then he’s tearing away from Caduceus and Beau, ignoring their sudden outcry; he stumbles into the attached water closet, knees hitting the floor with a crack he can’t feel as he heaves up everything he’s eaten in the past day into the privy.

“Caleb, what the--oh.” Beau’s voice, in the doorway behind him, is faintly slurred. “Yeah, okay. You, um, want me to hold your hair?”

He can’t get any words out, but a moment later feels hands sweeping the hair off his forehead. Distantly, he hears Beau’s voice, heavy with exhaustion: “You’re okay, we got you. You’re gonna be okay.”

When the heaving stops, he shuts his eyes and rests his spinning head on the wooden seat. He hears the clink of ceramics, then Caduceus is crouching at his side, a hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey, Caleb, I’ve got some water if you’re ready for it?”

He’s not sure he’s ready to raise his head, much less put anything in his mouth, but he opens his eyes and takes the cup, sitting up just enough to take a small sip. His vision is blurry, and as soon as he swallows his stomach clenches, sending stabs of pain through his body. He shoves the cup back blindly and shuts his eyes, riding out the waves of nausea.

“Caleb, what’s the matter?” Jester is there now, voice high with anxiety. “Did you get poisoned?” 

He doesn’t think he can shake his head, but Caduceus answers for him. “I think he’s just pretty stressed out. It’s been a hard day, and this kind of thing happens to Caleb sometimes when he’s anxious. He’ll be fine, he just needs some rest.”

“We all do,” Beau slurs.

Caduceus sighs. “Isn’t that true? Let’s start getting ourselves cleaned up, and then maybe I can make us some tea. I’m all covered in--is this ichor? I think ichor is the word.”

“Ichor,” Beau agrees. “Or gore. Effluvium. Suppuration. Cruor, maybe--”

“ _ Ohh- _ kay, Beau!” Jester breaks in. “Time to rest.”

“I’m just saying, you’ve got options,” Beau mumbles, her voice retreating from the water closet, presumably led away by Jester.

“How are you doing, Caleb?” Caduceus asks. “You need another minute, or are you ready to start cleaning up?”

Cautiously, Caleb opens his eyes. The room only spins a little. “ _ J-ja.  _ I am--I am good.”

Caduceus hands him the cup of water. “Here, try another sip of this, if you can. You don’t want to get dehydrated.”

Obediently, Caleb takes the cup. His hands are still shaking, and the water sloshes onto his clothes, but he supposes it doesn’t matter, filthy as he is with blood and--what did Beau call it, effluvium? He tries a tentative swallow, then another.

“When you’re ready, there’s a bathing room down the hall,” Caduceus tells him. “They sent up some hot water and towels. No hurry, though; take your time.”

“I am ready,” Caleb says. He isn’t ready, but that hasn’t stopped anything else that has happened to him today. He hauls himself to his feet, waits for the roaring in his ears to back off, and then follows Caduceus down the hallway.

The others are already in the small tiled room, huddled around a tub of steaming water. Beau has stripped to the waist to clean the blood from her chest; the pink mark of the healed wound looks small compared to the amount of blood on her skin and clothes. Fjord is looking very hard at the floor, struggling to clean a slash in his thigh without totally removing his trousers. Yasha is working a comb through her tangled hair, her movements slow and careful.

Nott looks up as Caleb enters and gives him a crooked, tentative smile. She hands him a washrag, dripping warm water on the tiles as her hand lingers on his. “Are you okay?” she asks softly.

“ _ Ja, _ ” he whispers. “Nott, are you all right?”

She pats his hand, leaving wet splotches in the dried gore. “I’m always all right.”

He is so filthy--both with blood (his own, other people’s, hard to say) and with the black tarry stuff that came out of Obann’s punished form--that he doesn’t know where to begin. Hands seems easiest, so he starts to wipe at his sticky skin with the wet rag. His fingers are clumsy; he keeps dropping the cloth on the tiled floor.

“Ugh, Obann was so gross!” Jester complains. She runs a hand through her hair, frowning as her blue skin comes away tinged with dark ichor.

“True in more ways than one,” Beau growls.

“I wish they had a shower in here. We have one in the Lavish Chateau, it was  _ so  _ nice. And it was good for getting sticky stuff out of your hair, like if you spilled honey on yourself, or icing, or anything. A lot easier than this!”

“How would you get honey in your--” Fjord starts to ask, then shakes his head. “Never mind, I don’t need to know that.”

“There’s probably a bathhouse in the city,” Nott suggests.

“I’m not sure some of us have another outing in us,” Caduceus says. “And I’d feel a lot better if we kept the group together this afternoon.”

“Yeah, I don’t really want to go out again either,” Jester agrees, frowning. “There’s got to be a better way to do this, though. Maybe if . . .” Her eyes light up and Fjord instinctively steps back from whatever she’s about to do.

Jester dunks her whole head and shoulders into the tub of washing water, making gleeful bubbling noises. She comes up with a tremendous gasp and shakes her head like a dog, sending water flying. 

It is such a relief to see her alive and silly and--relatively--unharmed by all the terrible things that have been happening, that Caleb can’t help but smile. A giggle starts as a tickle in his throat and then swells until he is laughing out loud. Jester grins back, her smile wrinkling her nose. 

Caleb keeps laughing, he can’t stop--and suddenly a line has been crossed and Fjord is staring at him in concern, and Nott is moving toward him, and Caleb himself is scared. His laughter, slightly frantic now, echoes off the walls of the tiled room, too loud in his own ears, too breathless. His hands are shaking; the buzzing in his fingers is back. His knees fold and he sits down hard. Somewhere in the middle of everything, the laughter has turned to crying.

“Caleb?”

He’s falling apart, and he can’t help it. All the anxiety and terror and loss he’s kept tamped down inside all day is pouring out in ugly, heaving sobs. He’s so scared, and he’s so  _ tired _ of feeling scared. He scrambles backward across the tiles, pulling his knees in to his chest, hands white-knuckled around his shins. 

Jester comes around the tub too quickly, slipping on the wet floor. “What’s the matter? Did something--”

Even if he had enough air to answer, he doesn’t have the words. There is nothing left inside his head but the cold, black terror. He hears himself whimper, a choked animal cry.

Black spots are growing at the edges of his vision, blotting out the room, blotting out his friends who are--oh so careful--giving him his space, being cautious not to touch when it might be too much. He’s gasping for breath, fast and frantic, and he can’t get enough air. His chest hurts. Desperate, he throws out a trembling hand, pleading, as everything fades to gray. 

Then--there is a hand in his.

He grasps it convulsively, fingers clenching around their wrist. The person allows him to pull them closer, and then there’s a strong arm around his shoulders. It steadies him enough that he manages to draw one shuddery, heaving breath. He lets it out in a sob.

The person he’s clinging to shifts, and he grabs at their shirt with his free hand, stupidly, desperately terrified that they’ll go away. The arm around his shoulders pulls him in against their chest and he sucks in another breath. The buzzing in his ears retreats, just a little.

Now he’s aware of others around him, voices speaking softly, hands rubbing circles on his back. It doesn’t take the terror away, but it makes just enough space in his brain to let him catch another breath, and then another.

“Good,” a voice in his ear murmurs. “Just like that. You’re gonna be okay.”

He hasn’t been okay in years. He doesn’t remember what okay feels like. He muffles another sob into the shirt in front of him, gasping as his lungs forget how air works again.

“Keep breathing,” the voice reminds him. “It’ll help, I promise.”

Caleb tries. Panicked, shallow breaths shudder through his body without seeming to bring in any air; his chest aches like it’s being crushed in a vise. He struggles through ten . . . twenty . . . fifty ragged breaths, and he still feels like the earth is closing in around him.

But after sixty breaths, his vision clears enough that he can make out the pattern of floor tiles: pink and gray marble in alternating squares.

“You’re doing really well,” Caduceus says, and oh, he can name the voice now. “Keep going, just like that.”

“In and out,” Nott croons, and with the sound of her voice he becomes aware of her rough hands on his arm, her knobby knees digging into his side.

After a hundred breaths, his limbs unlock. He sits back, unclenching his hand from Jester’s shirt. (His right hand is still clutching her arm, but he can’t bring himself to let go yet.) She brushes her free hand over his cheek, wiping away tears and blood; he tries not to lean into the touch. 

“Today was a lot, wasn’t it?” she says, and he has to look away or the softness in her eyes is going to utterly destroy him. 

Caleb’s other hand finds Nott’s. The two of them let him cling to them, crouched on the bathroom floor, while he breathes and cries and waits for his hands to stop shaking. He hears the crack of joints behind him as Caduceus gets up, and after a minute the firbolg returns with a fresh cloth.

“Is this all right?” he asks. Caleb finds his head empty of words, but he manages a nod, and the cleric begins to gently scrub his skin: his face, his neck, his scarred arms. 

The others have returned to getting cleaned up; Fjord must have taken advantage of the commotion to get out of his pants, because now he’s wearing a towel around his waist and scrubbing at the dried blood on his chest. Beau is propped against the side of the tub, eyes half shut as Yasha carefully rinses her hair. The room is mostly quiet; only the gentle splash of water and the low murmur of Fjord humming under his breath break the silence.

Caduceus finishes with his exposed skin and pauses, a question in his eyes. Caleb fumbles at the buttons of his shirt, fingers still numb and not altogether under his control. Nott tsks and tugs at the back of his shirt, and he shrugs his shoulders up and lifts his arms as well as he can (it feels like they’re made of lead; he knew he was a scrawny man but  _ gods _ , how did he get so tired?) so she can drag it over his head.

“Caleb, I’m going to try to wash my hair out again,” Jester murmurs. “Is that okay?” He nods and she throws a quick hug around him (heedless of Caduceus’s mild huff as she gets in the way of his work) before hopping up and going back to the large basin. As she returns to her tactic of dunking her head in the bathwater, she’s subdued, some of the color drained out of her, and Caleb feels a weak surge of guilt. 

Caduceus finishes cleaning Caleb up (tomorrow he will be ashamed of this, Caleb thinks) and drapes a towel over his shoulders. “Here, can you hold on to this? It’d be good to keep warm until we can get back to the rooms and get you something dry to put on.” 

Caleb reaches out as Caduceus is turning away, grabbing the man’s sleeve before he gets up. 

“Mm-hm?”

Caleb opens his mouth to thank the cleric and finds that words are still more than he can manage. Looking up, he meets Caduceus’s eyes and hopes the message gets through.

Caduceus’s wide face breaks into a weary grin. “You’re very welcome,” he rumbles, patting Caleb’s hand. He waits for Caleb to let go before pushing himself to his feet, groaning as his stiff muscles stretch. Nott leans her head against Caleb’s shoulder. 

Caleb watches, feeling incredibly distant, as Fjord (flushing a deep forest green) accepts Caduceus’s offer to wash his back. Jester wrings murky water out of her jacket, frowning at the stains that remain. Caleb lets the quiet wash over him and focuses on slowing his breath further. Water from Nott’s hair slowly soaks through the towel, cold against his bare skin. 

The others are nearly finished, Caleb thinks, which is good: He can feel Nott shivering against his side. As he looks down at her, he realizes she never did finish the bath he interrupted. It’s impossible to tell if her black hair is dirty or just wet, but her face and clothes are streaked with black ichor. He nudges her, and when she looks up he motions with his chin toward the tub.

“Oh no, it’s okay,” Nott tells him. “I’ll stay here with you.”

He gives her a little push, and she hesitates. “Are you sure? I don’t want to--you’ll be all right?” Caleb tries to smile, and while it doesn’t feel like it works, Nott seems to understand his intention. With another pat to his arm, she gets up and goes back over to the basin.

As Nott starts in on the world’s quickest sponge bath, Jester comes back, hair twisted up in a towel on top of her head (the image sends Caleb back to nights in the student residences, to memories he  _ really _ can’t afford to go back to now). She crouches down in front of him, tsking. It’s not until she brushes a thumb under each of his eyes that Caleb realizes he’s still crying silently, that he never stopped.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and he shakes his head; no, she shouldn’t be sorry. He doesn’t know anymore who  _ should  _ be sorry for all the ashes inside his chest, and he’s not sure it would mean anything if they were. He wants to tell her that he doesn’t want her to be sad for him, that he didn’t even know he was crying--but words are still a thousand miles away. He settles for a watery smile.

“Well, shall we . . .?” Fjord asks the room, hands on his hips, staring out over the absolute disaster they’ve made of the bathing space. The water is nearly black, and the tiles are splashed with filthy water. On the far side of the room, Caduceus is stacking some wet towels and rags that look like they’ll never be fit to use again.

Yasha wordlessly offers Caleb a hand, and he lets her pulls him up to stand. He leans into her side as they return to the room, stumbling along a hallway he doesn’t remember walking. Her arm around his shoulders is cautious at first, as if she doesn’t trust herself to touch, to help--but after Caleb sways once or twice she takes a firm hold on his arm to keep him upright.

It’s all Caleb can do to stay on his feet while Jester and Yasha help him into dry clothes. As soon as it’s done, he leans his weight toward the bed where Beauregard is already sprawled out, more than half asleep. With Yasha’s help he crawls up beside her and leans his head back against the wall. He’s so tired, as if his whole body has turned to water. Maybe it has; his face is still wet. He is filled with a faint, buzzing numbness, not unlike the haze of panic that wrapped around him earlier, but this time made of exhaustion.

Caleb doesn’t trust his mind enough to let himself drift--there’s no telling what kind of thoughts it’ll run to right now--so he watches what’s happening in the room. Caduceus is quietly making tea; the familiar motions of setting up the brazier and measuring out the dried leaves are like a ritual. Yasha hovers for a minute before announcing her intention to go downstairs and find some food.

“I’ll come with you,” Nott volunteers. “We’ll be back in five minutes, okay?”

Next to Caleb, Beau mumbles something and rolls over in her sleep, pillowing her head against his leg. Her slow, even breathing reminds him to take another deep breath, and he finds that the catch in his chest is almost gone. It feels good. He takes another and looks up to see Caduceus smiling at him from across the room.

Voices drift in from the balcony: “Fjord, this is kind of a fancy hotel; I don’t know if they’ll be super happy to see all our laundry hanging out like this.”

“If they don’t like it, they can come up here and do something with them,” Fjord grumbles. “I’m too tired to take them down.”

“Maybe we could put some kind of illusion over them? So it looks like just an empty balcony. Or no, wait, like somebody got trapped out here naked--oh, but that would make them  _ more _ likely to come up here and check things out, wouldn’t it?”

“Jes, do  _ you  _ have the magic left to cast that kind of spell?” A pause. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

“Tea’s ready,” Caduceus announces, deftly stepping to the side as Jester comes skipping back into the room.

Caleb takes the offered cup with shaky hands and holds it to his chest, feeling the warmth seep through his borrowed shirt and the sweater Jester had insisted on piling on top of it. He watches as the others settle down with their own cups, forming a circle around the room that reminds him of nights camped out around a fire beside so many different roads.

“Don’t forget to drink that,” Fjord prods him. “You probably need to rehydrate--you lost a lot of blood in the fight.”

“ _ And _ you were puking before,” Jester adds cheerfully, settling down beside Fjord on the bed opposite Caleb with a cup of her own. Her face falls. “And then you were crying for, like, an hour. That’s a lot of water.”

“I didn’t . . . know,” is what comes out of Caleb’s mouth. He’s not sure what he means, but he thinks he’s trying to comfort Jester, to bring back that toothy smile. He wants to explain that he doesn’t feel sad right now--he’s not sure he can feel  _ anything  _ at the moment, just that quiet, warm exhaustion--but he’s out of words again.

“Drink your tea,” Caduceus prompts gently.

Caleb drinks. The heat travels down his raw throat, settling in his chest like a glowing coal. He takes another sip, and something in the back of his mind wakes up, starts analyzing the flavors, identifying: mint, licorice, something green and savory that might be thyme.

“We have food!” Nott announces, parading in with a silver tray big enough that she could curl up and take a nap on it. Yasha trails behind, struggling to shut the door while balancing another tray on one arm.

Half the tray that Nott lays down triumphantly is meat--roasted, stewed, an enormous grilled steak--but they also remembered to order vegetables for Caduceus, and Yasha’s tray is almost all deserts, towers of meringues and whipped creams that make Jester squeal with delight. There’s a salad of some kind of green vegetable, shaved into paper-thin ribbons, that Nott nudges over to the side of the tray closest to Caleb.

“Um, Nott, did you happen to pick up some silverware?” Fjord asks as they lay the feast out on one of the beds.

“Fuck!” 

Yasha is already sliding off the bed. “I’ll. Go down and ask.”

“It’s okay, Yasha, we can eat with our hands!” Jester chirps. “It’ll be like a picnic!”

Fjord frowns. “I’m not sure a picnic  _ necessarily _ means you--”

“I have spoons,” Cadeuceus says.

Yasha is still hovering near the foot of the bed, unsure. Caleb summons up the energy to pat the covers next to him with one heavy arm. “Stay,” he croaks. Yasha sits.

“You need to eat,” Nott tells Caleb as his friends fall on the supper. “What looks good to you?” She tips a pile of little cakes off a plate and begins filling it with a little bit of everything. To his surprise, Caleb realizes the hollowness in his stomach feels more like hunger than nausea. He’s not sure he’ll actually taste anything, but he points to the salad, knowing she ordered it for him, and is rewarded with a little smile of satisfaction when she thinks he isn’t looking.

“These little tarts are really good,” Jester says around a mouthful of pastry. “Do you like peaches, Caleb?”

Instantly, Caleb is hit with a wave of sense-memory: Soft, fuzzy skin of fruits warmed by the sun; big jars of bright orange slices lined up on a pantry shelf; tart juice filling his mouth, dripping down his chin. “ _ Ich lieb--nein, _ I . . . I love them,” he says, his voice rough.

“Sugar would be a good idea,” Caduceus agrees. “And then some rest. We’ve all had a very long day--but you especially, I think, Caleb.”

As Caleb works his way through a bite of each dish, Jester shakes Beau awake. She grumbles, but rouses enough to crawl over Caleb’s legs, devour most of a roast chicken, and immediately fall asleep again, head pillowed on the edge of the silver tray.

Caleb breaks up a tart with fumbling fingers and places a piece in his mouth. The warm, yellow flavor of summer spreads across his tongue and for a moment he has to close his eyes. He opens them at a touch on his arm and sees Nott looking up at him, worried. He pats her hand with sticky fingers, smiling.

“I’m okay,” he whispers. She nods and returns to her plate, loaded with sausages and slices of roast meat, and something that is leaving behind a lot of bones, but she snuggles a little closer into Caleb’s side. 

He looks around the circle of his friends: Beau draped across his legs, asleep even with one arm folded up awkwardly under her ribs; Jester plying Fjord with pastries; Caduceus placidly sipping a second (third?) cup of tea; Nott licking sauce from her fingers with one hand while refilling her plate with the other; Yasha . . . Yasha perched on the very edge of the bed, as if ready to flee the moment someone notices her there.

Caleb leans across Beau to grab another of the little peach tarts. He passes it over to Yasha. “These are very good,” he murmurs. 

“Um. Thank you.” The pastry is very small and fragile-looking in her big, scarred hands. Caleb looks away, giving her space, but out of the corner of his eye he sees her take a small bite. Her lips twitch into something that is not quite a smile, but getting closer.

“Oh gods,” Fjord groans, leaning back, hands on his stomach. “That was all amazing. I don’t think I could eat another bite.” Nott pointedly shoves half a sausage into her mouth in a single bite, as if the meal is a competition she’s determined to win.

“I’m ready for bed,” Caduceus sighs. “I think I could sleep for a week.”

“Do we want to put up the dome?” Jester asks, licking whipped cream from her fingers. She looks over at Caleb.

Caleb  _ wants  _ to put up the dome; he wants the dome, and the silver thread, and a hundred other spells he doesn’t know how to cast yet. But he’s not sure he can make his way through all the complicated words of the incantation. He shakes his head. “I don’t--” He waves one hand toward his chest vaguely.

“We’ll set a watch,” Nott says firmly. “It’ll be fine. We’ve done hundreds of nights like that, and besides, we’re in a city; it’s not like we’re going to be surprised by gnolls in the middle of the night.”

“I can take first watch,” Yasha says. She flinches back, as if surprised by the loudness of her own voice. “I’m not, um, sleepy. Unless . . . that is, if you want me . . . to?”

“That would be wonderful,” Caduceus assures her.

As Fjord and Caduceus take the remnants of the feast downstairs, Jester coaxes a half-asleep Beau under the covers, cuddling up next to her. Caleb takes the bed in the center of the room, the heaviness in his limbs warring with a new buzzing in the back of his head. He knows he needs to sleep; he’s entirely wrung out. But it’s not going to be an easy night.

Nott is drawing down the covers on the other bed. Caleb props himself up on one elbow. “Nott . . . would you?” He voice comes out a rasp and he has to clear his throat. “I think . . . I will sleep better if, if you are here. If it . . . is it okay?” 

She smiles. “Of course. Whatever you need.” She climbs in the bed beside him, pushing his head down onto the pillow. “Go to sleep now, you look awful.”

Almost immediately, he does.


End file.
